Maybe you don’t need an amazing CRM

It is the end of the year, and if you raise money for a small nonprofit, you might be wishing for a fabulous database like bigger organizations have. Larger organizations often have CRMs that bring in donation data automatically, store it alongside subscriber data, and can segment in sophisticated ways. What you may not realize is that one huge advantage of these systems is available to you no matter how small your budget. Hair flipping is practically free.

A big reason these systems are useful is that they let you automate the appeals.

And that isn’t such a big deal because sending is so time-consuming.

The big deal is that if you have to click send, you might not do it.

Maybe you’re saying, “Oh, I would send it.” And you would. The first time. And after that first appeal, you would get a phone call or an email from someone complaining. Maybe it would be someone you’ve never heard of who calls you horrible names. Maybe it will be someone who gave you $10,000 last week and who received the email at an address you had no way of knowing was hers, and you’ll genuinely feel awful about it. Maybe they’ll call the CEO instead of you. Maybe they have 100,000 twitter followers and they’ll tell them.

Whatever it is, you’ll spend more time thinking about the complaint than you do about the donations that come in. Someone will tell you that you’re asking for money too often.

The system that sends the emails for the big organization isn’t impressed. The system says, do you have data to back up that you’re asking too often? That you’re sending too much? The system just keeps asking.

You think about what you send all the time because it is your job, but the people receiving them get all kinds of messages. Think about some organizations that have really, really good data on this. Did you ever get emails from Obama? His operation was famous for having amazing data and raising huge amounts of money, and if you were ever on that list, you know how much mail they sent. A LOT. I promise you people have said to Barack Obama, “Man, you guys send me a lot of email.” I don’t know what he said in response, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he said, “Those emails WORK!” What I do know is that they never stopped sending them.

Because Obama’s system doesn’t care.

So if your system requires you to click send on the next appeal, you’re not getting that fancy CRM edge. Humans care about other people and their squishy feelings and whether or not they like our emails. This is a big advantage that bigger organizations have — squishy human feelings don’t get in the way of the appeals. The system doesn’t care, it just keeps asking for money.

And guess what? The system gets more money than the sweet person who won’t click send. So if you can’t have your own fancy CRM, channel your inner robot and just keep clicking send. Put a sign above your desk to remind yourself to care more about the donations that come in than the complaints.

And make sure you count the donations after each send, because that’s what you ought to be thinking about.